Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Financial Freedom Is Possible For You - Saen Higgins On Creating Generational Wealth

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

Saen Higgins (@saen_higgins) is an author, speaker, coach, serial entrepreneur and philanthropist who has been in the Real Estate and Financial Services Industry for over three decades. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about how you can build generational wealth, what to look for in a real estate investment, how he has taught over half a million students to build wealth, his favorite books, the best lesson he has ever learned in life, how he started his first business and much more! For more information on Saen Higgins visit: http://saen360.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet CVV CLIPS: youtube.com/CVVCLIPS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van! Hello, good to see you, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. So good to have you with us. I appreciate you being here. Hope it's been an amazing week for you.

My parents are actually here in California, visiting from Toronto. It's been so nice having them in town. They went to an open house with my girlfriend, Rachel, and I, We're in the market right now. And it's very fitting that Sean Higgins is on the show today because he's an expert when it comes to all things real estate. And also how to build generational wealth with real estate and with all kinds of other things. Fascinating guy. Fascinating conversation.

Find him on Twitter at Sean underscore Higgins. And yeah, that's not a typo. He spells it S-A-E-N. You can check out his website, Sean. 360, so S-A-E-N-360.com. And if you're not following me, I'm at Chris Van Fleet, since we're talking to my websites, mine is chris-vanvlyte.com. And if it's your first time here, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on anything

that we have coming up in the next few weeks. Got some really big ones. I can't say who just yet, but some really big ones. Our fan of the week is Hunter Kentucky Reeves. He says, amazing podcast. Chris is an amazing home. with unbelievable guests, long-time listener, and this podcast is definitely in my top five.

Well, thank you, Hunter, Kentucky Reeves, H-K-R. I appreciate you leaving that review on Apple Podcasts. I read one on every single episode. So if you have an iPhone, then you do have the podcast app, so go in there, leave a few words. We'll shout you out on the show. If you're a Spotify listener, where my Spotify fans at? They've got ratings on there, and at last check,

And they just came out with the rating as like, I think, at the start of the year. We already have 609 ratings on there. That's amazing. So if you're listening on Spotify, I would so appreciate it if you could go in there. I mean, clicking the five stars would be great, but give it the rating that you think the show deserves. Sound good? All right, let's dive into this one. Please welcome, Sean Higgins.

Sean, is that a whoop strap that I see on your wrist there? Yes, it is, sir. Same here. Same here. It's a new, you got the new version. Yeah, the 4.0. 6 months or some groovy thing like that, yeah. But for people that don't know what we're talking about, this is like, I guess you could

call it a fitness tracker, but it like tracks everything in your day. It's a little more than that. And I'm not trying to be like, well, I've got the best trap. But, I mean, it does more than that. I was introduced to it by a doctor, friend of mine who was head of cardiology at Baylor. And, you know, he went into the whole matrix. of it. A friend of mine is a seal, SEAL Team 8 right now

actually is retiring and I told him about he and I were having a conversation. He's, dude, we're wearing these. And so, you know, HRV, you know, variability, sleep patterns. And I don't know. So Chris, how long have you been wearing yours? I'm about a year

now. So I've had mine about four years and, you know, the whole, you're in the green zone, I'm like, whatever. Oh, let me tell you how accurate. So for those people that don't know what we're talking about. It goes to an app and the the amount of information that it would give somebody, if you talk to any trainer, they're like, holy moly. And so it doesn't just say, oh, you had a good sleep. It literally looks at your heart variability. You're breathing. It actually has

not because of COVID, but, you know, oxygen levels and all of that stuff is in there so you can tell. So when you're not, when you don't have a good, a good sleep, it knows. And then it says, oh, you might not want to work out as hard. And you better listen to it, you know. Yeah, the biggest revelation for me was how bad drinking is for you. Like, if you have any more than like two drinks, it ruined your sleep. Dude, I just did that. What was that? We were drinking. We had some 18-year-old McKellen. And, you know, first night, spring, it's got nice out. me and the guys are over here and we're like, oh, yeah. So, you know, it's 18-year-old McKellon.

That's some of the best scotch there is out there. And so I had, Chris, I had like two glasses. And that was it, you know, and the next morning, boy, you can really, it can really tell. I mean, my doctor always says, food is your medicine. Stop with all the other stuff. And this really does let you know that. So it's not, it's not cheap. I don't know what it is, a monthly deal on it or something like that.

About $30 a month. It's scrap itself is free, but $30 a month. Yeah, you know, and then I don't know what you've done. We should probably do this sometime, Chris, but you know, your workout. So it tells you how hard, strenuous you win on it. Yeah. So with my trainer, I went a 30-day contest. We could see who could have the best sleep, important,

and who could keep their level over 15 consistently. Oh, then you and I should get on this. Yeah, so she beat me by like a half of, you know, she was like 15.9. I was 15.2 or something like that. But I kicked her ass in the sleep because I've really focused on got to get my sleep down. This whole BS that we were brought up with that, you know, work hard, work hard. I can get it by on four hours of sleep. Well, I can get by on two hours of sleep.

That doesn't mean I'm functional. Yeah. It doesn't mean you're going to be sharp the next day. No. No. And let me ask you a question. Please. When you do get that peak sleep and you,

are in that, you can feel it. I mean, you can, when you start becoming of aware of the variables, talking about the drinking and what have you, that have, that do affect your performance, it's a big deal. And then here's the other thing. It tells you when, when you're not, you go, okay, I can push myself for this much, plan on a nap, plan on something to revitalize you if you have something later on the afternoon. So the interesting thing is when I talk to successful entrepreneurs like There's always this balance of, all right, I'm doing all this stuff for my business, but I need to also balance that out with my health. This is a big deal. So I'm going to tell you, it was probably, I'm going to say 2011.

And I was going to a very small, intimate, there was 12 of us there. And we were literally locked ourselves in this beautiful, almost meditative room for three days straight. and our job was to design our life. And we had somebody that was leading the whole thing. And, you know, that means like health relationship with your kids, your parents, everything, finances, business, different things, spirituality, the whole nine of us. And we were driving back from that to the airport. It was in Chicago.

And we were going to the airport. My buddy says to me, we need to really consider. to our health, they says, yeah, I think we need. Now, our friends are going to start dying. I was like, what the heck? And he was right. Number one, I've lost some friends in that time period. But what it prompted me to do was to start looking at my blood.

And now I knew that because of, you know, I'm a, a ferocious reader. I read Chris on him, I mean, just almost, I just got done reading the Elon Musk book. And I, I know it's several years old, but that was just wants me to go, go out and buy it. a Tesla and I don't even need a car, you know. That's such a good book, by the way. It really, it really is for entrepreneurs out there. But, you know, what it is, you know, I read this book called Your Blood Doesn't Lie, and I have some really good friends that are doctors.

And I'm going to tell you, it saved my life because I started doing some blood work. I found out I had early stages of prostate cancer. And the first thing that the doctor said to me was, how did you even know to look for this? And I know, I wasn't. And I got ahead of it so early. that you know obviously early detection is the key in that for anybody watching it gave me so much bandwidth because what people do in that situation is what I call they put you on the $3 billion a year cancer train of because they freak you out you know of course it was a very startling thing to find

out but they all just shook their head yeah we don't even need to do anything right now this is that's how early this is, which gave me time to step back and put a plan together, which I was able to successfully wipe the whole thing out. I'm not even in remission. I have zero cancer. Wow. Sean, if we take it back way before that, so you were talking about a plan for your life 10 years ago, what was the plan for your life? Like when you were going, all right, this is what I'm going to do for a living? So for a living, it was similar to what I'm doing. I invest in property taxes and property tax deeds. Most people know me of that. I have a company that sets up self-managed retirement accounts also. We've been very, very successful with that, only because in my business of acquiring real estate,

the most effective way to put it in your retirement account is if you're the administrator and the trustee. And so I thought it would be disingenuous of me not to teach that within the strategy that I was teaching. It'd be like saying, here's how you made these famous, Amos cookies, but not telling you you need a $15,000 of it, you know what I mean? And so to the point where, you know, somebody, I was at a meeting unrelated to tax liens and tax deeds, and somebody from the audience said, are you going to continue to teach tax liens?

And I started laughing. And the person that brought me there had no idea of that background because I've got such an extensive finance. And they're looking at me like, what's he talking about? I said, you know, so, you know, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to share that information, how to provide financial independence. I show people how they can get properties for pennies on the dollar.

It's recession proof. It's inflation proof. It's president proof. You know, all of that stuff. So in that design, it was more about who I wanted to become. What kind of, like for instance, I'm at my house right now. I'm in my sweater. And I got a call.

And from the school, as soon as I saw St. Rose come up, I thought, oh, I know what's going on there. And they said, hey, Shannon's not feeling. so good. I got a seven-year-old. And, you know, I was, I'm in the position where it doesn't matter. I went and picked her up, you know, that I've, her and I have gone to Africa on safari. We're going to Mongolia to go see the Eagle Huntress in July, special permission on that. So that was really what that was all about. And I think it's, this is a great question, Chris, and thank you, because I don't want to be that guy that says success is so easy.

Yeah. But we make it complicated. And I want to go back to what you and I were saying earlier about right now, we are the smartest we've ever been. We're in the best country that's ever been created on planet Earth. We have more resources than everything. And morally, as much as I've traveled, you know how much I've traveled, Chris, we have an obligation to be successful in this country. I just, I can get goosebumps even saying that because it's true. You know, there's no excuse. And so when you have all of these things that or a finger trip. And I see these people to say, why do people from other countries come here and are so successful? Because they can't believe how easy it is. Yet when we're here and we're in this environment, there's a softness that's created.

And so part of my thing is, is go out there, be involved. When I say go out there, I mean overseas, I've slept on people's caught in the middle of their dirt floor living room. And they were super proud to even have me. there. It's a humbling experience, but it makes you, it makes me more than grateful for what I have. It makes me feel obligated. Does that make sense? Yeah. What do you think is the biggest mistake that

people are making with money right now? The biggest mistake is not having a plan. And literally, for instance, let's just take tax liens and tax deeds. When I train people on that, And this really started getting traction in probably the last 10 years of teaching it over the last 27 that I have been is the more time you plan the success of this business, the more successful you are as a client. So I'll give you a, for instance, I work with a small group of my clients about 40 to 60 a year personally. Now, why are they nine times more successful than my other students? And the funny thing is when I'm working with them personal, I spend about 10% of my time teaching of tax lien certificates and the rest of it's all about planning and execution. And so it really taught me early on when I started doing that, I was right.

The more time you spend on crossing the T's, let me give you a, for instance. Let's use the million dollar number. You know, because everybody, I want to make a million dollars. Okay. A, well, if you're at A and you're trying to get to the B and B is a million dollars and you've never been on this trail, you know, speaking of our hiking or whatever before, you're going to get lost. But if you know for a fact, let's say that Chris, I said to you, okay, this is all I want you to do

over the next three weeks. Don't think about anything else. And you did those three things and you got massive results in those three things. What's going to happen the next time I tell you to do things? you're going to be more enthusiastic and you're going to go because you know you're going to go because you know you're going to go. And so when I say plan, you can't just plan, make sure you've got somebody that's helping you plan that knows what they're doing. And so when you go through those stages, all sudden, you, and people don't give this enough credit. When you know what you're doing is the right thing at that moment to move it forward, your enthusiasm and everything goes straight up through the ceiling.

Yeah. Especially when you get the results that you're looking at. So when I say a million dollars, I start breaking it down. And I have been doing these three-day workshops around the world for, gosh, I think our first one was in 95. And, you know, I'm sitting there going through the whole process. I go, you guys, you're so worried about getting a deal when I'm sitting there going, all I'm looking at is, let's say we want to do a million dollars. How many deals would it take to do that?

Okay. And then you start, well, I don't know. Well, let's just make some numbers up for right. now. At least we have a target. And what people do to answer your question, full circle, Chris, is they have a tendency to take a gut and shoot it at a barn wall and then go up and pay the target around it and say, I hit it. Instead of sitting there going and be okay with course correction. So if I say, I'm going to go to Georgia, I just did a bunch of deals in Georgia. And my model was 20 properties would generate a million dollars in return, which would mean I would have to make about

$50,000 profit per property. Well, it's turned out to be a lot better than that. Okay, so I'm 18 months into this venture, and it looks like it's eight or nine profits. Well, I don't stop because I don't have the perfect information. My target on the wall was, you know, just like a sniper, if you will, you know, you've got a guy that's sitting over there two degrees this way. While I shot, and it turns out I was off, and I could have been low, I could have been 25 or it could have been 15, whatever it was, but I make adjustments. And so now all I got to do is say, what do I need to do? How many calls, how many people, how many auctions, how many, what do I need to do to get

one property? So that when I'm going through this and I'm getting blanked out of an auction, I don't get a deal. I don't care. Sean told me I have to go to eight of these before I get two. So if I haven't gotten any in eight, I better hang on because I'm about ready to get four in a row because the numbers don't lie. And there's so much to unpack from this. And I think one of the big ones I really want to key in on here is you talk about like having someone guide you along the way, like a coach or a mentor. I think in this age of information where like you said, we've got

everything at our fingertips, people feel like, oh, if I just listen to a podcast or I just watch a YouTube video, it's going to be good enough. But I think this idea of having someone that's guiding you along the way is so different. It's a game changer. Well, it is. It is. It is a game changer. isn't it isn't and you know i've never done anything successful chris without a guide i've never had a without a mentor and i've spent tens of thousands of dollars on people to guide me speaking when i first spoke in front of a group it was unbeknownst to me i didn't know that's what i was going to be doing i was told that i was going to speak to some clients of an attorney that i was showing how to do tax lane certificates and he said fly down to uh you know

Newport Beach, back in your neighborhood, come see some of my clients. So I flew in there and, you know, we're having dinner the night before. He says, is there anything you need? Like anything for your overheads or what I'm like, you know, this is, I'm dating myself overheads, right? And I'm like, overheads. And then he looks at his son and he goes, does he even realize that he's speaking to my, I'm like going, what's going on it?

Well, I thought it was 12, 15 clients. We're going to sit at a conference room and I was going to explain this strategy that I've been doing for six months. And there was a 364 people in a room. Wow. And these were lawyers and doctors

looking for things to do with their money. And my only bandwidth or painting I could do is I'd been to a Tony Robbins conference in 1992. And so I had no idea. So I got up there and, you know,

afterwards, Jay just looked at me and he goes, you know, that was all right. But you're going to hire somebody to help you out with this. And immediately I found somebody out there who wrote a book on this. I called the author up and I paid him a lot of money to sit down with me and explain to me. And from that point, and accelerated my success, Chris. And from that point forward, that was in 1996, I think it was, or five. And since then, anytime I'm getting into a subject, I know that there's somebody better than me on.

I find that person. I hire them and know that that money is going to come back to me tenfold. Well, and the biggest thing about that is you can learn from their mistakes and not make them on your own, you know. Like you said, it accelerates the process. Yeah. And it is interesting what you said earlier about in this age of information, Chris, how many people think that there's like, you know, there's this magic, oh, I'm going to go in there

and watch this YouTube video. And those of the youth are younger. I mentioned Tony Robbins, so I'll mention it again. I love that he had somewhere in one of his tape series back in the early 90s or maybe 80s or something, he had a thing that says he gets people to come up to him and says, I've watched, you know, your infomercial a hundred times. And he goes, I just didn't have the heart to him and said it didn't change. The information is the same over.

Watching it a hundred time isn't what gets you successful. it's implementing that and making sure you do the right thing. You know, obviously you go to the gym. You know the difference. When somebody comes in and watches you do a particular exercise and they go, no, no, no, no, no, you know, whatever, bring your, you know, twist your body. And also you go, oh, that hurts a little more, doesn't it?

Yeah, okay, now you're exercising the right muscle just by a little tiny tweak on that. Yeah, the gym's actually a perfect example because there's just little angles or you think you can do, N reps and you've got someone there going, I bet you've got 12 and you. And that's like that's an extra 1% that pushes you and helps you get to the next level. Yep. Yep.

Absolutely. I think that John Elway, a lot of people don't realize he was the first quarterback that really utilized what we're talking about. And so to make, to put a point on this, Gary Kubiak was his quarterback coach. He was his backup coach or backup quarterback. So when he got out of football, he hired him as his, quarterback coach because he sees things that he didn't. And so, you know, then, of course, that's blown up. Peyton Manning has made the whole and, and Brady have made that, that whole thing

just legendary. The amount, what was it that somebody said, I think it was the defensive coach of a team that when you play Peyton Manning, he knows our defense better than we do. Wow. And that goes back to having the coaching, you know, come in there. And so, um, You know, again, it really depends on what you're trying to do, Chris. I think whenever you're trying to get out of your wheelhouse and you're trying to do something new, yeah. Don't reinvent the wheel. Somebody's done it before.

Yeah. Accelerate your learning, which accelerates the revenue, which accelerates everything. We've mentioned a few books already. I'm really curious, Sean. What's like the go-to book that you would gift to someone or recommend to someone most? Geez, you know, I've got, ah, man, I read so much. There's so many books behind you. isn't there? Well, there's some. I've got a whole living room. I just actually moved a bunch of stuff.

And my daughter, my seven-year-old, I've got a bookshelf that's eight feet high and six feet wide. And I've actually put all my books into storage because I'm redoing some new ones out there. You know, I think some of my top books are mostly biographies, but, you know, man's search for meaning by Victor Frankel. You know, there's one thing in that book that is so key. is you control your own attitude and your outlook. And, you know, no matter what, for those you don't know the book, you know, it's one of Congress's top 10 in the top 10 books ever written. And, you know, Victor Frankel was a psychologist of some type in World War II. He's put in a concentration camp.

I'm just really gleaming over. I'm not trying to discredit, I mean, his experience. But what he did is when he went into the concentration camp, he decided to actually write on the behavior and reaction. of people as almost like a thesis or a doctrine in there. So it's just well documented. We don't need to talk about the atrocities, what happened in those camps. But one of the things that he identified really quickly that you can't refute

because of the situation is you can take away everything from somebody, but you can't take away their ability to change their attitude to the point where he could almost predict when somebody was going to die because of things and behaviors that they did. when rumors would circle around that the ally forces were coming in and they were going to be there and they're going to be there on March 15th. And somebody believed that and started giving away all their personal things little they had. And March 15th came and went and the allies didn't come. He said literally within 72 hours, that person typically didn't make it.

Wow. That's how serious that is. So that to me is a very, very strong book. Just to kind of get yourself around how important how important this. is between your, you know, what's between your ears is the most important thing. I think right now, and this is, don't laugh at me, but this is such an important one, you know, because habits are so important, is atomic habits by James Clear right now. That's such a good book. You know, that gave me so much validity into what I was already doing, you know, when I thought I was a little weird, you know,

because some of the stuff I do, like, I mean, I have a hook for my key that's on the left side of the wall as I come in because I realize my keys to my car are in my left hand as I walk in from the garage. And when I had the hook on this side, I wouldn't twist that way to put it on. Now, those of you that haven't read the book, and Chris, obviously you have, you wouldn't get that. But that's a, you know, an experience where put things you want to do in front of you and put things that you don't want to do more difficult to do type of a thing. Yeah, that book is so good. And, you know, the idea here with Victor Frankel's book is like you have really just control over how you want to feel.

You can't control the things that are happening around you, but you have control over how you want to react to those things. And for you, Sean, have you always had this mindset? You know what? I got to say I have. You know, there was an old lady that lived next door to me, Mrs. Jameson.

And I used to go over and hang out with her. I used to watch baseball, and she'd send me the grocery store, and I'd get bananas milk for her. She'd give me 25 cents or whatever. I was there all the time. And so one time she broke her hip as older people do. And she had a walker.

And so I took the walker away from her when she was sitting in on the couch. And I told her, and I put it on the other side of the room around the coffee table. I remember this like it was yesterday. So I must have been seven. And I told her if she didn't need the walker. Because if she really believed she didn't need the walker, she could walk to her walker. And so, and I remember this. I was still to this day convinced that that was the case.

But she called my mom and my mom had to have a chat with me, and Ms. Jameson really did be. And I had a really incredible event about eight, nine years ago. One of my friends that I grew up with, we all were a very tight group of people I grew up with in grade school. And our fifth grade class, Renato, one of my buddies, was marrying Catherine, one of the other girls in our fifth grade class 40 years later. Wow.

And our fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Kirkus, had a huge impact on my life. And it was her second year teaching. So she was only like 24, 25 years old. I had a big crush on her too. But so he had invited her to this wedding. Of course, all of our fifth grade fast, as many of us that we could make it, we went to Santa Barbara and went to this wedding. And so I got a hold of Mrs. Kirkus and went out to lunch with her and her husband.

And I had the opportunity to sit down with her and talk to her about that year and some of the impacts that she made to me. And she says, you know what, John, I got to tell you, you scared me. She says, I knew you were either going to go one way or the other and the other wasn't a good way. Wow. She said, you know, I said, all I remember is you said, Sean, everybody will do anything you want. you just got to make sure they're doing the right thing. And I started, I thought, I was like, right. And so I literally experimented, Chris. I started having people do things to see if they would actually do them. And they would. Wow. So it sounds like the idea of like sales and marketing

came to you kind of in at least. Oh yeah. You know, I mean, I, you know, trust me, I wasn't, you know, none of that stuff is born in you. But I mean, you know, there are certain, you know, love languages as people say, you know, those are real. And, Her thing to me was that she says, you would get everybody in the class really excited about doing something and everybody would be doing it. I'd look over and you're over on the other side of the room doing something brand new, which is very, you know, I have to really keep the, you know, my focus because the shiny pennies will come into my peripheral, but quite often, Chris, as they say. With someone like you has so much knowledge in real estate and the market's just, I mean, it's crazy right now. what would you say to someone who's looking to buy a house right now? You know, if you're looking to buy a house, buy it.

That's for you, buy a house. It doesn't matter when it is. You know, you're in California, Chris, for a short amount of time. But, I mean, let's just talk about your hometown of Toronto. Yeah. If you could go back at a time machine, okay, and buy every single piece of real estate you'd get your hands on in 2008 after the big crash. Would that be a good opportunity right now? Yeah, but everybody was saying the sky is falling.

Yeah. I could do that over and over and over again in most markets. There are some markets that didn't have the acceleration like others just because of their location, but they're all catching up. You know, if it's a house for yourself, I always say, I don't care what the interest rates are. I don't care what the market is. You buy in and pay it off as quickly as possible. I am a big believer in not carrying debt on a house or anything for that.

So this is the old, it's not about timing the market. It's about time in the market. Yes. For your own house, absolutely. You know, let's shift gears. Yeah. If I'm talking about tax liens and tax deeds, then it comes down to an equation. So if I'm buying a property, let me give you an example of something that's in my,

I'm doing it property right now. I'm just getting the house, the roof done right now. So we pay $92,000 for it. It's worth $250. And what city is this in? Atlanta, Georgia. Okay. So I've got the property.

It needs probably about $50,000 of some good TLC. I'll be in it. Let's just do easy math, 150, and the property is worth about $250. I'm okay. Right. I don't care what the interest rate is because for me, it's about the deal always is done on the purchase. So I make my money on the purchase. Now, it took me a long time to understand when people said that over and over again.

So if I paid 200 for that property and had to put 50 into it, well, I really didn't make a whole lot. Now I'm in a rental situation, which is, you know, all of these things got to happen. Whereas if I'm paying 92, I think it is, or 97, I can't remember about to look, but regardless, to say, $100,000 for this property that's got an after rehab value of $250, you know, I can screw up pretty badly, right? And I'm going to be okay. And what happens is, so that's what I said at the beginning, you know, tax lien certificates are good, no matter what the market is. If somebody can show me a safer and more lucrative investment opportunity than tax

liens, I'll pay them $1,000. I've had that challenge for over 25 years because you can't, you know. I mean, these are big numbers. I think we're talking for a lot of people. What if someone just has $5,000 that they want to? So there's another property that I got that I paid $7,000 for. And it's got a fair market. And this thing is, it was rough.

But it was somebody had passed. There were no errors of the property. So nobody paid the taxes on it. And, you know, and just so you understand, to everybody, it's clarity in 27 years. And in all the deals I've done, only one time did I get a property back where the owner lived in the property. You know, and we work something out. You know what I mean? If somebody loses their property.

property a couple years back taxes. Don't kid yourself. They're financially in a bad position. Sure. Don't kick anybody wall or down. But it puts you in an opportunity to actually help. And so in this situation, she had passed and there was no errors. When we finally got, when we clear title and everything and got in the property, had to clean it out. I mean, literally there was, you know, we didn't want to open the refrigerator because, you know, it had been just left. But I paid $7,000 for that property. The property has got a fair market value of $130,000. It's a pretty good investment.

Yeah, and that's not like one of these, oh, that doesn't happen. Yeah, it kind of does. But if you live in California and you get a property in Georgia, how are you finding people that are going to go in and rehab it? That's pretty simple on it. And, you know, it is a challenge. But once I get my team in place, I'm good to go. I always say it's amazing what happens when you're out there.

So I have never seen this property. I've never physically seen this property. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've seen the last 10 properties I've in. Now, that's changing because of my YouTube channel and I'm, you know, I want to videotape and walk people through the whole process. But Caleb, he's one of my lead trainers. I go, dude, just drive out there. He goes, I can't find a guy. Just drive out there.

And I said, come on. I said, you've been with me 15 years now. Boots on the ground. And he thought he was getting pumped. As he shows up at this property, gets a thing unlocked, and it's, you know, hotter than Haiti. You know, it's in Savannah. Their, you know, their reputation for their heat is just extraordinary. You know, he's got a generator in the back.

He's going to start tearing things down because he's got to get something going with it. And this guy across the street, Brian comes over and says, so I live across the street. You guys are the ones that bought this. He says, yeah. Oh. And he goes, what do you all need? And he says, well, he's going to start tearing it down. He goes, well, my family owns a real estate company,

and we have about probably 60 rental properties here in Savannah. I got a whole bunch of people. You want me to make some phoneclus? Wow. And so Caleb's thinking that I, you know, I set this guy across the street over there, and 15 minutes later, you know, these Ukrainians, you know, to throw them into the mix here,

they're in a truck and they do demo. they came in there and they said, yeah, we can come in and demo the whole thing. You know, and then he's like, you know, a roofer? Yeah, let me call my friend. And so, you know, again, it just kind of, you know, goes with that. So being there in person, it's okay. But I mean, here's my question, Chris, I'll put it right back at you. Yeah.

If you buy a property for $7,000, it's got an ARV, actual rehab value of $130, $160, are you getting it on a plane and go check it out? Yeah. You know what I mean? So, you know, again, it becomes a point of, yes, there is a lot you can do from the comfort of your home. And I teach people how to do that. But at some point, you know, so let's just talk about it. I get to go to Savannah. And so you've mentioned several cities and I knew them, I know, I know I know every city in America. Yeah, because I've been there. I've done the research. I find out who the locals are. Cleveland, oh, I love Cleveland. I've spent five years there. I've got some properties over in Cleveland. And the only reason I was doing deals all over is because of my students. And it really taught me how to really understand the marks.

Am I going to be everywhere? No. I mean, there's plenty of these around for everybody. But after doing this for 27 years, what keeps you going? What drives? That's just fun. I mean, it's still fun to you. It is.

Oh, yeah. You kidding. That's exciting because there's a lot of people that are 27 years. seven years deep in their career and they're counting down the days until they retire. No, you know, but the thing that it's the teaching side of it that's more challenging than ever because I've got to slow myself down. It's new. You know, if Chris, you and I were working together and I'm walking this too, I got to bring it down. This is not insult on anybody's intelligence. It's just I have done this for so. It's like you in broadcasting. You know what I'm saying?

You forgot more than somebody in the industry coming in is even knows yet. Sure. And so my thing is, how do I get more effective at getting somebody to the point of success? I've gotten really good at weeding people out. That's probably your superpower is being able to read someone. You know what? I don't know how clean you are on this, but I can sense a BS meter way. I bet. You know, that BS meter starts going off. I'm like, you know, so I'll put a couple of challenges out and say, if they follow through on this, I'm going to have a superstar. And it goes back to what we were talking about before when I'm designing out my life.

And I'm saying the more time somebody spends designing this, the more successful you're going to be. And when I say that, I mean, it's like how much time during the week are you going to do this? So one of the things I've gotten really good at my team has is that is what I call the tipping point. How do we make this that you're making so much money at this that you have to quit your job because it's getting in the way? Right. I don't meet very many people that go, you know, I've got nothing to do today. shitload of cash. Can you help me? That's just not a conversation I'm getting on a regular thing. They're like, dude, you know, I'm gambling. I'm juggling a bunch of different things. And so

what we're saying is, okay, so if that's the case, then let's plan our month out. When during the week are you going to do the research? Here's an example. My seven-year-old, I have her 50% of the time. My time is 100% when she's with me. She's with me. Love that. And so I know for a fact that if I get my workout in before she gets up, it's not going to happen. So when she's with me, you know, which I always have on Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, it's 5 a.m. I put a gym in my, took my garage, converted into a gym, even though I got a spectacular club, not, you know, one of those lifetimes, if anybody knows what those are, right down the street. Literally, I can almost walk there, but it, 5 a.m. 4.30, you know, I get in there. I do a

workout. I'm in the shower by 6 o'clock because that's what it takes. So when somebody's talking to me, I don't have enough time, I'm going bullshit. You find the time until you get to where you need to be. And this is what I tell people, work like no one will for one year. And you'll live like no one else can. I love that. Yeah. And I mean, it's true because you got to do that combination. When you talk about planning, Sean, how much are you planning every day, week, month? Yeah, it's extensive. I'm looking at my whiteboards. I mean, my assistant the other day, I have a virtual assistant,

and we were going through a meeting with a recap, because we've got a bunch of conferences. We're going to start getting back out there and doing live conferences. I said, I talked to so-and-so, then I talked to so-and-so. She's like, Sean, when did you talk to these people? Well, yeah. I said, you know, let me tell you something. I've got a list.

I want to knock out, you know, let's go back into, you know, the habits of highly effective people. atomic habits and stuff like that, you know, some of it's just knocking that stuff out and making sure you're on point so that we have a little chitter chatter, but we go from there. My true catching up and what have is for my masterminds. You know, I go to my masterminds and I hang out with people and, you know, we just, you know, really move the can, so to speak, down the room. Here's another thing I really want to, I really, really want to emphasize people. And I think that I'm going to try to say this a little differently. So maybe because we've all heard it before,

your success is directly reflected on who you hang out with. That doesn't mean you go home and say, I'm not allowed to hang out with you anymore because you're not successful. It means that who are you taking your advice from? Yeah. See me more. Who are you taking? See me more.

Yeah. Is this soup ready? Turn the temperature down just a little bit, maybe, okay? Well, I already turn it off. Okay. We'll come check it in a minute, all right? Yeah, but, but. See me more, me more, Cinco minutes.

She's making herself some chicken soup as their stomach as a mixer. I told her she has to learn. Well, we're almost done here. No, no, we're fine. We're fine. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, it's the company you keep.

Right. And so I just, I did a speech on this back in 2016, I think it was, a big group of people. I was with Jack Campbell. who's become a dear friend of mine. And, you know, it was about this. And I thought about this with our students. Why do we never stop and pause and think about who we're hanging out with?

We always are so critical about our kids, speaking of kids, you know, who you hang out with. And, you know, seriously, evaluate your top five people. And are they where you want to be? And that doesn't mean you, literally, I'm serious. You don't think I can't hang out with you anymore. But if the people you're hanging out with and you're running deals by are making a quarter million dollars a year and you want to make a million, that's probably not a good choice. If they're making 60,000, you make 100, but it's probably not a good choice. Yeah.

Okay. So elevate yourself. And I said it earlier. Make sure you find a group where you're uncomfortable. We're like the freaking talking about stuff that you're like, oh, shit, I don't know what they're talking about. That's where you need to be. and don't be afraid to seek out those groups, you know, and understand that that's what's going to get you to that higher level. And, you know, I don't know.

There's people have a lot around that guilt of wanting success with money and what have you. I see it a lot, you know, Chris, I've worked with so many people and I've seen that. Then you've got to get beyond that. But let me tell you something. The more successful you are financially, the more people you're going to be able to be able to, effect and the positive. Right. That's just it.

Your problems don't go away. Diseases don't stop coming. It just gives you more options to make an impact on other people's lives. Yeah. You're absolutely, you nailed it with that. People want to find out more about you and want to work with you. What's the best way for them to connect? Well, they can go to my, they can go directly with me, which is S A-E-N.

I spell Sean a little differently. S-A-E-N-3-C-E-M- You must have to spell that for everybody. God, I know. much as I travel, it's like, it's like daily. So S-A-E-N-360.com, that goes to me personally, which goes to all my websites. You know, retirement-wise, you can go to Club 401K, and then you can go to Tax-Lean Academy, Tax-Ling Certificate Academy.com, and that's another way you can get to my deal. Just go to, you know, Sean 360.com. Literally, you can text me directly and say, how do I get more information on it. And I literally will answer that. That's another impact that I want to have. I want to be

more, you know, involved with my students. I'm also got a YouTube channel that you'll appreciate, Chris. I just started in the end of January and I've already almost got 40,000 views on it. Well, you have yourself a new subscriber in me. Oh, good, good, good. That's what I want. I want to be able to make quick impacts on people. When I see something happen out there, you know, just be able to, you know, get it out there and do some things for sure. I have loved this conversation. Next time you're in South Southern California, please give me a call. I will.

I will, Chris. This has been fantastic. I appreciate you giving me the time to come out here and share all this information. You know, and here's the reality of this, if one person, if one person says, I want to go read Victor Frankel's book, I want to go read Atomic Habits, I want to do this or what have you, then we've done our job, haven't we? Absolutely. I end every conversation talking about gratitude because I love gratitude.

I start and every day saying out loud three things that I'm grateful for. And I end every interview with that too. So, Sean, what are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? Grateful for my mom. She's got a big influence on my life and her and I've spent some time this weekend. She's just down the road. And grateful for health. You know, I have to get on a plane here on Thursday to go help somebody out that's not doing really well.

And, you know, she went from, you know, running a triathlon a year ago to not good. So, yeah, you got to be grateful for that. And then also grateful for what we have here. I mean, you know, I don't think we need to go too far with, you know, the impact of what's happening, you know, in Europe, what's happening in Africa, what's happening anywhere to realize how blessed we are that we have what we have here. And you and I are able to do this and impact people. So I'm just super grateful for all of that. And it motivates me and gets me excited every day to get out for sure. Same.

Sean, appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chris, for having me. All right. Big thank you to Sean for joining us on this one. Of course, thanks to you for being on this audio adventure with us. Also, thank you to Sean's daughter for the cameo during the interview. Hey, do me a favor.

Share this episode with someone who knows going to be inspired by this. And take a screenshot. Let us know you're listening. Tag us on social media. Sean is at Sean Higgins, S-A-E-N-U-S-N-S-Higgins on Twitter. I'm at Chris Van Fleet, and I'll leave you with this great quote. It's a classic from George Bernard Shaw.

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. Be great and be grateful. Have an amazing weekend. We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. The Hammer Alley. podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock,

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